Kaori

Inspiration

As huge perfume connoisseurs we love scents and smelling good. People often say that they can smell the pheromones emitted by someone they are attracted to, like it is a perfume. While there is no solid evidence of humans emitting or smelling pheromones like other mammals, it has come to represent attraction between people. We wanted to dig deeper into this concept of the human body giving off signals of attraction. The name, "Kaori" means scent, fragrance, or aroma in Japanese. This name expresses our inspiration of aromas and the smell of pheromones.

What it does

Kaori measures your heart rate, body temperature, skin conductance, and movement intensity. This is used to determine how emotionally and/or sexual aroused you are during certain interactions. These metrics are collected via a smart watch. These metrics are collected because individually and together they represent an increased emotional state, with your body acting in fight-or-flight.

How we built it

Our entire project is built utilizing Figma and the tools available to use through it. We did not use Figma Make. Our project is 100% our own efforts. After researching different sensory systems and possibilities, we landed on pheromones and attraction. We then created a mood board to assemble the colors, fonts, and themes we wanted to tackle. This was fairly simple to complete so we then moved on to a low-fidelity prototype. The low-fidelity prototype simply shows our general ideas and what we wanted Kaori to encapsulate. After completing that we made a high-fidelity version by expanding upon our ideas, testing what works, and adding animations to make it unique.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was determining what to measure. We had to do research into the various factors that are increased during an aroused state. Although, we wanted to ensure we encompass emotional arousal too as that is just as important.

Time was also a challenge. This was a very hectic weekend for us as it is midterm season. Although, we really wanted to participate in this challenge. We had to figure out the time to work on it, but it ended up working out.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Creating an entire high-fidelity prototype in just a weekend. We have never gone through the design process this quickly. Our studio classes have forced us to go through this process very slowly so it was exciting to do it at a rapid pace. Seeing the two extremes we can see why our studio classes are taking it slowly.

What we learned

We learned a lot about coming up with a brand identity. Kaori utilizes the same colors and fonts to ensure recognizability. We also learned a lot about interactivity on Figma. Creating animations and interactions is something we are still learning, but Kaori was a great way to experiment and practice it. We also learned how to design for a small screen, such as a smart watch.

What's next for Kaori

A optional smartphone app that syncs the data to allow users to view it in another location and easily share it with friends and family. Increased analytics and new collected metrics to increase the accuracy of Kaori.

Built With

• figma